World in a Tangle

                                  
     It is like the flowers falling at spring's end,

                   confused, whirled in a tangle.

     “Exile’s Letter” by Ezra Pound 
     (from the Chinese of Li Po)

Deliquescence is the opposite of inspissation,which is a form of viscosity that derives from dehydration. Does this have anything to do with the 0th Law of Thermodynamics, which mandates the transfer of heat between systems in a state of disequilibrium? The answer is no, though the facility of movement is really the question. It’s like cold war politics, in which the Wall inhibited travel between East and West. In oil pipes and on freeways, flow is constricted by a thickening of the mass that is attempting to move through a narrow space. The problem takes on Malthusian dimensions when it is bodies that are causing the constriction. Bodies fill the narrow streets of Little Italy during The Feast of San Gennaro, making it practically impossible to walk. So many cars are needed to accommodate all the bodies heading out to the beaches of Long Island on Fourth of July weekend that the Long Island Expressway, the Grand Central, Meadowbrook and Northern Parkways become like J.F.K., where the number of planes taking off for England, France, Germany and points East exceeds the capacity of the runways, creating long queues and delayed departures. Of course arrival in London or Paris via Heatherow, Charles De Gaulle or Le Bourget will be no improvement, as there simply is not enough road space for the landing flights. This is also true in Barcelona, Milan, Frankfurt, Munich, Vienna and her sister city on the Danube, Budapest, and it is sometimes no easier to travel between Buda and Pest than it is to navigate through the West Village on Halloween. Inevitably, the proliferation of matter creates a black hole that belies the Milesian notion of flux.

Notes from The Twilight Zone New Year’s Marathon: "The Arrival"

A plane lands, but there are no disembarking passengers or luggage.  Ground crew personnel are afraid they are going crazy, but the airline’s managers, confronting a public relations disaster, confirm the bizarre truth: the flight landed with neither passengers nor crew.   

   

What has happened to flight l07? An official from the FAA appears on the scene to interview the employees. It’s troubling he says, but he has gotten to the heart of even the most puzzling of mysteries. Still, it’s odd: hours have passed and no relatives of any passengers have called.  He soon concludes that the plane doesn’t exist. It’s all a form of mass hypnotic suggestion. He asks the members of the ground crew and management to read off the wing numbers, and each comes up with a different series. And no one can agree on the color of the seats. One saw blue, another brown, and yet another purple. The FAA official decides to submit himself to an experiment. He asks that the engine be started up. He will walk into the turning propeller. If he is right, he will live. If not, he asks simply that his wife be notified. He walks into the propeller, and nothing happens.

   

The mystery deepens when the plane vanishes, along with all the supernumeraries, save the FAA official. Alone, he walks through a deserted hangar to the airline’s offices. He runs into several of his old cohorts, but no one recognizes him or understands what he is talking about. No plane has gone down. Flight l07 arrived safely from Buffalo. In its history, the airline has only lost one plane, the only unsolved case the inspector has ever confronted—that of flight l07 from Buffalo, which disappeared l7 years before. “We always found a cause!” the inspector cries, confronting the reality of his madness.